


What's in a name?

by VanillaMostly



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-08
Updated: 2013-05-08
Packaged: 2017-12-10 20:24:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/789789
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VanillaMostly/pseuds/VanillaMostly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Catelyn learns a lesson on how far namesakes can carry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What's in a name?

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Romeo and Juliet, obviously.  
> Don't own!

 

According to Maester Luwin, it was the first day of summer. Catelyn would have to take his word for it; she herself could never discern a difference between spring and summer in the north. In Riverrun the flowers would shed all their petals to give way to green, sun would beam down on the river as children came out to swim, and there would be _crickets._ Not here in the north. Why, just the other day it had even snowed. When the babe came wailing into the world, not all the snow on the grounds had melted.  
  
In the room of Catelyn and Ned, though, it was hot. For once Catelyn felt it as keenly as her husband did; sweat trickled down her forehead and breasts as she sank back into the pillow with relief. After Robb and Sansa, Catelyn should have known that this delivery would go smoothly and her baby be born healthy - but she always thought of poor Lysa and selfishly feared the same fate. Luckily, from the volume of the infant's cry, Catelyn knew her worry was for nothing.  
  
Catelyn strained to sit up, ignoring the servants fluttering about, trying to get her to rest... "Maester Luwin," she said, reaching out her arms.  
  
Maester Luwin chuckled but did not need to ask to know what she wanted. Gingerly he gave Catelyn the baby, now cleaned and swaddled in a soft blanket.  
  
Catelyn's heart was beating fast as she peered down at the tufts of dark hair, at the tiny pink face, at the mouth that shrieked with impressive strength. The eyes were screwed in concentration but Catelyn thought she glimpsed the color, distinctly grey. "Oh," she sighed, "like Ned."  
  
The war in the Iron Islands was won and Ned and the northern men would return, safe, any day now. Catelyn had hoped Ned would be back in time for the birth, but the ways things worked out might not be so bad. Catelyn imagined his face when he saw, at long last, a son who-  
  
"Aye, my lady," beamed Maester Luwin. "She has the Stark looks for certain."  
  
Catelyn paused in rocking the babe in her arms. "She?"  
  
"A beautiful, healthy girl for Lord Eddard," declared the maester. All the servants clapped, gushing in excitement.  
  
Catelyn nodded and smiled like the rest of them, and tried not to let them see her disappointment. There was nothing wrong with a girl, of course. Sansa would have a little sister to play with, the two of them just two years apart, like Catelyn and Lysa. But, oh...  
  
Catelyn had been so _sure._ How many times had the babe kicked from inside her womb? And she'd had so much morning sickness, much more than she had with Sansa. Even Old Nan had smiled a smile that showed the gaps of her missing teeth, patted Catelyn's bump and said, "A strong boy you have in there." They all said Old Nan was so old that to be alive she had to be half a witch. _Apparently, not the fortune-telling kind._  
  
The door burst open, then, and suddenly shouts and a flurry of arms engulfed Catelyn. "Mother! Let me see, let me see!"  
  
"Robb," laughed Catelyn, as her five-year-old son jumped onto the bed, invoking Maester Luwin's cry of disapproval. "Be careful, or you'll frighten the baby."  
  
Robb made a face. "The baby is more like to frighten _me_. He howls louder than a wolf."  
  
It was hard to feel disappointed with Robb right next to her, staring in mixed puzzlement and fascination at the bundle of cloth. " _She_ is a wolf," corrected Catelyn, smiling as she watched Robb hesitantly take hold of one of the tiny hands. "Meet your new little sister, Robb."  
  
"Another _Sansa_?" exclaimed Robb, his mouth falling open. "I don't want another Sansa, she's boring!"  
  
Everyone in the room chortled at that. Maester Luwin chose this moment to come over and lift Robb off the bed. "Your mother needs rest, Robb," he scolded kindly. "Be good now, go out and play.”  
  
Robb whined, but he went willingly. Before he slipped out the door he looked back at Catelyn. “Can I see the baby tomorrow, Mother?” he asked, two blue eyes bright and eager.

“Yes, my sweet,” smiled Catelyn.

“Can Jon, too? The baby looks like him.”

Catelyn was determined to keep on her smile, even if her cheeks began to ache. She pretended she did not notice the servants exchanging a look. “If he wants to,” she said as graciously as possible, “he may.”

Robb seemed satisfied with that answer and he left.

Catelyn looked down at the daughter in her arms, a tiny little thing she was, but already she could see the Stark features, the wildness of the north. She found herself wistfully wondering again if, _just_ if, this baby had been born a boy instead of a girl... then Jon Snow wouldn't be the only son of Ned who resembled him so strongly, whom everyone could glance once at and say, "He is his father's son."

No, she was being silly. Ned loved his children - his _trueborn_ children - no matter what they looked like, and girl or boy, this child would be the apple of Ned's eye. _Forgive me,_ she thought to the little girl in her arms and to the Seven. She had been given too much, so she almost forgot how fortunate and blessed her life already was.

"My lady," said Maester Luwin, his quill poised over the record book he kept for the Starks, "do you have a name for the child?"

A name. Catelyn held her babe closer to her, and a laugh escaped her throat when the little girl grabbed at Catelyn's auburn locks. _Pity I can't name you Brandon after all,_ thought Catelyn, amused. By now the situation struck her as funny. She couldn't wait for her little girl to grow up and tease her about how badly she had fooled everyone, especially her lady mother.

But first, a name... Catelyn wondered if Ned should be here for this, but they had agreed that Catelyn would name the girls. Sansa was from a charming nursery song about a red-haired maiden who dreamt of flying and turned into a bird. Catelyn tried to think of a dark-haired maiden in the songs bards sang. Oh, there was one, and a wolf maiden she was, too, but Catelyn suppressed a shudder at the thought of it. Not Lyanna. That was too much like tempting fate.

Then Catelyn sat up straighter, remembering. "Arya," she told Maester Luwin. In truth the warrior in the song was named Aaryen, not Arya, and was a warrior prince, not princess, but when she had heard it for the first time at Riverrun, the singer's peasant accent had been so bad she thought he sang "Arya," which sounded every bit like a girl's name. She realized her mistake years later but by then, she only knew the song as _Arya, tale of the warrior princess._

"Arya, Arya," she repeated to the baby, smoothing over the lovely dark hair. The baby quieted her cries, regarding Catelyn with pale grey eyes, as if in understanding. _Arya, my little warrior princess._ Catelyn figured it was a fitting name for a daughter fierce as a boy even before she had been born.

\--

Catelyn exhaled deeply.

Ned walked to her, putting a hand on her shoulder. "What is it, Cat?"

She turned away from the window, where below a grown Arya was chasing her brothers in the yard barefeet in a muddy dress, brandishing a wooden sword in her hand. "Ned," she suggested, "perhaps you should name the girls from now on instead."

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
